Ugh- More Misinformation on 802.11ac

There’s enough bad writing out there already when it comes to wireless networking. We see article authors taking gadgets for a ride on their home networks, falling in love with them, and declaring whatever it is to be THE NEXT BIG THING FOR THE BOARDROOM! -With no regard for the fact that boardrooms are usually in corporate settings where business wireless networks are in use that have vastly different operational characteristics than the home networks where they tested said gadget…

Then there’s the crazy, fun, imaginative, truth-stretching WLAN marketing that usually takes a white paper to explain how the claims were arrived at, with methodology that would impress even a dodgy congressmen on the witness stand to the point of blushing.

I guess these aspects of the greater wireless networking paradigm have always been there to different degrees. With 802.11ac, we compound the Fog of Wireless War with Wave 1 and Wave 2 and big numbers in the standard that may or may not ever be realized. So be it… but every now and then something makes it to print that just feels… damaging.  

People read this stuff, and form expectations and plans. Even a cursory look at Wikipedia would have set this right:

I’m not trying to bash the writer personally, as I don’t know him or her. But as a writer, I really have to wince when I see something this off base and I picture the misconceptions it can propagate, and the ripple effects those misconceptions can have when the information presented is taken as factual. 802.11ac is already confusing enough, this sort of thing really doesn’t help.